Chapter nine
And then he said it was time for the long winter sleep, and they should go into the cave he had dug with his claws and sleep and dream for winter. The snow was beginning to fall, the ground was white, they had eaten many rabbits and were both ready. She felt herself loving him from inside his bear nature from her bear nature. She began to understand what a bear dreamed and how it changed the world. Bear was healer, she knew that now. Bear would heal sick people, she could feel this in her body deeply. She knew how bear healed and she knew she would be a bear healer somehow. This did not make sense to her especially her human mind which thought about her brothers, but she knew in her bear grizzly heart that this was true.
They slept in the bear den together as bear lovers all winter. Each month they would wake together and kiss and get up and eat food he had stored for her and then sleep again. Each month seemed like one day to her and all month she dreamed and he dreamed and they dreamed together the same dreams. She dreamt of being a bear shaman woman healer and teaching her people this. He dreamt to become a bear shaman healer and as he dreamed he became the bear shaman because of her dreams. She dreamed the bear shamanic right into him as she saw in her own dreams how bear healed. this was a woman bears vision, the healing came from the first bear woman and now was passed in the dreams to all the bear wives and then to their husbands as they slept together and made love all winter in the den.
Soon, between dreams, when they woke between months of dreaming to eat, chooki bear found she was pregnant. She saw in her dreams, she was carrying two cubs, the cubs of her and her lover and the bears in the stars who dreamt the two of them each night month winter. And she could see these two cubs, her sacred bear babies and she knew that this was the reason she was here. One night in her dream, she saw star bear dancing in the sky and saw the baby bears come from his making love with his bear wife in the stars and saw the babies drop in the tube of love and land directly in her belly after she made love with her beautiful husband. Now each night month in her dreams she talked to her baby bears from the stars. She showed them how to dance, how to be sacred and how to be bear shaman when they would grow to brother and sister bears and be born before the spring.
The star baby bears were born in February in den. Chooki bear woke for the beautiful birth, she grunted for some moments and her muscles contracted as her two cubs came out, she licked them awake with bear mother love which came to her from bear mother on earth and from bear mother in the sky. And then she put the cubs to nurse and went back to dream. In her dream she saw the star bear dancers now with dancing cubs going round and round clockwise in a circle with a drummer, and singer, and fire, and she saw mother bear above them covering them like a blanket with love.
Her husband would sing in the night. This began as she dreamed him a shaman. He would sing and chant bear songs and chooki knew these were to songs that would be sung during bear ceremony forever. She listened to his songs, sung some of her own woman’s songs and went back in her dream.